Stuart and Demere argued the matter in their secret conclaves. Both
admitted that although Montgomery had had only four or five men killed,
among them no officers, on his first expedition, he might have again
taken the field, and this was as they hoped. He was advancing; he must
be near. The trophy of the fine red coat meant probably that he had lost
an officer of value;--perhaps meant less--the personal disaster of the
capture of baggage or the necessity of throwing it away. Montgomery had
advanced,--that was indubitable. Nevertheless,--and perhaps it was the
lowering influence of the scanty fare on which they had so long
subsisted,--both officers dreaded the suspense less than the coming
disclosure.
Stuart felt all his nerves grow tense late one day in the red July
sunset, when there emerged from the copse of pawpaw bushes, close to the
river where Odalie had once been wont to repair to talk to
Choo-qualee-qualoo, a tall form, arrayed in a gray gown, a trifle
ill-adjusted, with a big red calash drawn forward on the head, that
walked at a somewhat slashing gait across the open space toward the
glacis. He thanked heaven that Mrs. MacLeod was ill in her bed, although
he had some twenty minutes ago been sending to her through her husband
expressions of polite and heartfelt regret and sympathy.
"Why, I hardly thought Mrs. MacLeod was well enough to take a walk," he
observed to the sentry. Daniel Eske naturally supposed that Mrs. MacLeod
had slipped out before he had gone on duty, having just been sent to the
relief of the previous sentinel. Stuart went down to the embrasure,
assisted the supposed lady to her feet as she slipped through, and
ceremoniously offered her his arm as she was about to plunge down the
steep interior slope in a very boyish fashion. They found Demere in the
great hall, and both officers read the brief official dispatch with
countenances of dismay.
"This says that you can explain the details," said Demere, with dry lips
and brightly gleaming eyes.
"Oh, yes," said Hamish. "All the time that I was at Fort Prince George
the commandant was writing letters to Governor Bull--for Lyttleton has
been appointed to Jamaica--and hustling off his expresses to South
Carolina. He sent three, and said if he heard from none by return he
would send more."
For this was the appalling fact that had fallen like a
thunderbolt,--Colonel Montgomery had with his command quitted the
country and sailed for New York. His orders were to strike a sudden blow
for the relief of Carolina and return to head-quarters at Albany at the
earliest possible moment. No word of the grievous straits of the
garrison of Fort Loudon had reached him. He had, indeed, advanced from
Fort Prince George, which he had made the base of his aggressive
operations against the Cherokees, but not for the relief of Fort Loudon,
for neither he nor the commandant of Fort Prince George knew that that
post was in danger. The overtures to the Cherokees for peace having
proved fruitless, Colonel Montgomery had sought to make peace by force.
In pursuance of this further effort he pushed forward with great energy
and spirit, but encountered throughout disasters so serious as to
cripple his enterprise, culminating finally in a result equivalent to a
repulse. The Indians, in the skulking methods peculiar to their warfare,
harassed his march, hanging upon the flanks of the main body, and firing
in detail from behind trees and rocks, from the depths of ravines and
the summits of hills of the broken, rugged wilderness. Never did they
present any front that it was possible to charge and turn. The
advance-guard, approaching through a narrow valley, the town of Etchoee,
which the Indians had abandoned, fell into an ambuscade of considerable
strength, and there he lost Captain Morrison of the Rangers, and ten or
twelve men who fell at the first fire. The vanguard, discouraged, began
to give way, when the light infantry and grenadiers were detached for
its support. They succeeded in locating the chief strength of the
Cherokees sufficiently to drive the savages back, despite the disastrous
results of their scattered fire. The main body, coming up, encamped near
Etchoee, on a level space which proved, however, to be commanded by
eminences in the vicinity. Thence the Indians poured destructive volleys
into the British ranks, and only after repeated charges the soldiers
succeeded in dislodging them. Impetuously attacked on the flank, the
Cherokees suffered severely at the hands of the Royal Scots before being
able to get out of their reach. The terrible aspect of the painted
savages, and their nerve-thrilling whoops with which the woods
resounded, failed also to affect the courage of the wild Highlanders,
and all the troops fought with great ardor. But Colonel Montgomery
deemed it impossible to penetrate further through the wilderness,
hampered as he was by seventy wounded men whom he could not leave to the
mercies of so savage an enemy, by the loss of many horses, by the
necessity--which was yet almost an impossibility--of carrying a train of
cattle and other provisions with him in so rugged, trackless, and
heavily wooded a region, and relinquished the attempt, thinking the
terrible losses which the Indians had sustained would prove sufficient
punishment and dispose them to peace. He was even compelled to sacrifice
a considerable portion of his stores, throwing away bags of flour in
large numbers in order to effect the release of the packhorses to
transport his wounded. His dead he sunk heavily weighted into the
rivers, that the bodies might not be dragged from their graves and
scalped by the Indians. His return march of sixty miles to Fort Prince
George, which was accomplished with great regularity, was marked by the
same incidents that had characterized his advance,--the nettling fire of
the masked enemy, the futile response, and the constant loss of men and
horses.
And so he was gone, and all the hopes that had clustered about his
advance had gone with him! To Fort Loudon remained only two remote
chances,--that Governor Bull of South Carolina might be able to act on
the belated information and send out an expedition of relief; yet this
was to the last degree improbable, since the province, after its first
expensive expedition against the Cherokees, had been compelled to appeal
for its own protection to the British commander-in-chief, the militia
being practically disabled by the ravages of smallpox. But even at the
best could such an expedition reach them in time? The other possibility
of succor lay in Virginia, and it was obvious wisdom to embrace both
chances. Stuart knew that Demere's quill, scraping over the paper, was
fashioning the appeal to the royal governor of that province, even while
Hamish was still speaking, and he, himself, wrote supplemental letters
to other persons of note, that the news of their desolation, failing to
carry in one direction, might be spread in another.
"Now, Hamish," he said, smiling behind the candle as he held the wax in
it for the seal, "can you do as much again?"
"Where? When?" demanded Hamish, in surprise.
"To Virginia. To-night."
Hamish's eyes stretched very wide. "You won't wait for Governor Bull?
The officers at Fort Prince George said they would lay their lives that
Governor Bull would respond."
"We must try Virginia, too. My boy, we are starving. To-morrow we begin
to eat the horses,--then there may be a dog or two."
Hamish rose precipitately. "Where is Sandy? Where is Odalie?"
Stuart pushed him back into his chair, sternly giving him to understand
that the only possible hope of saving their lives was to get away as
quickly as might be with the dispatches for Virginia.
"Without seeing Sandy and Odalie?" said Hamish, his lip quivering.
"We have not the time to spare. Besides, would they let you risk it
again, even for them?"
And Hamish was suddenly diverted to telling of his risks, of all the
escapes, by flood and fell, that he had made;--how often he had been
shot at from ambush; how he had swum rivers; how he had repeatedly
hidden from the Indians by dropping himself down into the hollows of
trees, and once how nearly he had come to getting out no more, the place
being so strait that he could scarcely use his constricted muscles to
climb up to the cavity that had let him in. He had not so much trouble
on the return trip; Ensign Milne had procured for him a good horse, and
a rifle--he had had a brace of pistols--the horse was a free goer--as
fresh now as if he had not been a mile to-day.
"And where is he now?" asked Demere, a look of anxiety on his face.
"At MacLeod Station, hitched there with a good saddle on him and
saddle-bags half full of corn."
"Come, Hamish," said Stuart, rising, "you must be off; some Indian might
find the horse."
Hamish's eyes filled with tears,--to leave Odalie and Sandy without a
word! He could not endure for the men to see these tears, although they
thought none the less well of him for them.
"Let me drop a tear in farewell for Odalie," he said, trying to be very
funny, brushing his right eye with his right hand. "And for Sandy," his
left eye with his left hand. "And Fifine," his right eye with his right
hand. "And the cat," his left eye with his left hand.
There could be nothing unmanly or girlish in this jovial demonstration!
"Come, you zany!" exclaimed Stuart, affecting to think these tremulous
farewells very jocose.
"Yes," said Demere, seriously, "we do not know how soon the Indians may
discover our use of that passage,--up to this time it has been our only
hope."
Hamish gathered up his calash, and the precise Demere assisted him to
adjust it and his disordered dress more after the manner in which Odalie
wore it. Hamish, as directed, took Stuart's arm as they went out, his
eyes still full of tears, and for his life he could not control the
tremor of emotion, not of fear, in the fibers of his hand, which he was
sure the officer must note. But Stuart's attention was fixed on the
skies. It was later than in those days when Odalie was wont to keep
tryst with Choo-qualee-qualoo, now nearly a month ago. Still he fancied
that in the afterglow of the sunset the Indians might discern the color
and the style of the costume. Now and then a ball flew from the cannon
to the woods, to clear the forest of too close observers,--whatever risk
there was must needs be dared. The cannoneers summoned to this queer
duty looked at "Mrs. MacLeod" curiously, as she slipped through the
embrasure and made her way with a swinging agility down the slope
amongst the fraises and then off through the gloaming at a fresh, firm
pace. Then they gazed at Stuart, who presently bade them cease firing,
and they had no excuse to wait to see her return. A queer move, they
thought it, a very queer move!
Hope had grown so inelastic because of the taut tension to which its
fine fibers had been subjected, that Stuart felt a thrill of merely
mechanical apprehension when the next day Daniel Eske, the young
soldier, came in, desiring to make a special report to him. While on
guard duty he had heard a deep subterranean explosion, which had been
reported to the officer of the day. Later, Choo-qualee-qualoo had come,
waving her flag of truce, and after waiting vainly for Mrs. MacLeod, she
had ventured up the slope of the scarp, knowing full well that she was
safe under that white flag. She had brought a bag of beans, which she
had given him,--he bit his lip and colored with vexation, consciously
ridiculous in speaking of his feminine admirer to his superior
officer,--and he had taken the opportunity to ask some questions about
affairs outside the fort, upon which she detailed that an Indian--it was
Savanukah--had seen Mrs. MacLeod, as he thought, enter the subterranean
passage that used to lead to MacLeod Station. At first he had considered
it a slight matter, since the Carolinian's French wife had come so often
to talk to Choo-qualee-qualoo. But it somehow flashed into his mind how
this woman had walked,--with what a long stride, with what strength, and
how fast! And suddenly he realized that it was a man, despite the full
skirts and flutterings of capes and calash. So Savanukah ran swiftly to
his boat and pulled down the river, and made MacLeod Station just in
time to see a youth, arrayed in buckskins, issue from the cave and mount
a tethered horse. Savanukah fired at him, but without effect, and the
young man wheeled in his saddle and returned the fire with such accuracy
that even at the distance and in the twilight the ball, although nearly
spent, struck Savanukah in the mouth with such force as to knock out a
tooth. Then the boy made off with a tremendous burst of speed. And the
gray gown and the calash which the youth had worn were found inside the
passage. And great was the wrath of Willinawaugh! He had blown up with
powder both ends of the passage,--like thunder, _een-ta-qua
ros-ke_,--use could no more be made of it. But some were sorry, wishing
the paleface to return by that way, so that he might be stabbed in
the dark windings of the passage. This was impossible now,
Choo-qualee-qualoo said, for the spring had burst forth, forced in a new
direction, and was flooding all that part of the slope, flowing outside
instead of within, and Willinawaugh could not now change its disposition
if he would.
Stuart breathed more freely. If Hamish should return alone, which God
forbid, and not with an armed force, the external changes wrought at
MacLeod Station would preclude his effort to enter into the cavern, and
force him to devise some other method of approach. He wondered at
Willinawaugh--to destroy so promising a trap! But rage may overpower at
times the most foxy craft.
The dull days, dragging on, seemed each interminable while the
beleaguered garrison watched the impassive horizon and awaited
developments, and hoped against hope. The wonted routine came to be
abridged of necessity; the men on their reduced fare were incapable of
drill duty; the best hope was that they might make shift to stand to
their arms should a sudden attack require the exertion of all their
reserve force in the imminent peril of their lives. The diet of
horse-flesh proved not only unpalatable but insanitary, perhaps because
the animals had thus far shared the physical distresses of the siege,
and were in miserable plight, and there were as many men on the sick
list as the hospital could accommodate; this misfortune was mitigated to
a degree when Choo-qualee-qualoo brought another bag of beans to the
hero of the long-range flirtation, and he generously offered to share
the food with his fellow-sufferers. Odalie suggested its devotion to
hospital uses; and a few days of a certain potage which she compounded
of the beans and her economic French skill, and administered with her
own hands to the invalids, with her own compassionate smiles, and with a
sauce of cheering words, put a number of the stouter fellows on their
feet again.
The efforts to amuse and entertain had given way under the stress of a
misery that could form no compact with mirth, but from time to time the
officers made short spirited addresses to the troops to animate and
encourage their hope, and continue to the utmost their power of
resistance. And the exhalation of every sigh was with a thought of South
Carolina, and the respiration of every breath was with a prayer toward
Virginia.
As the number of horses had greatly diminished, and the discovery was
made that certain lean dogs had gone to the kitchen on an errand far
different from the one that used to lure them to the pots, about which
they had been wont to greedily and piteously snuff and whine, the
quiescent waiting and reliance on the judgment and the capacity of the
commandant to extricate the garrison from this perilous plight gave way
anew. Criticisms of the management grew rife. The return of Hamish
MacLeod, at the moment when starvation seemed imminent, and his instant
departure at so great a peril, for the circumstances of his escape had
been learned by the soldiers from the confidences of Choo-qualee-qualoo
to young Eske, who was always free with his tongue, implied that
Hamish's earlier mission had failed, and that no troops were now on the
march to their succor. They, too, had seen the capering Indian in the
red coat of an officer of rank, the lace cravat of a man of quality
which Choo-qualee-qualoo flourished, and they deduced a shrewd surmise
of Montgomery's repulse. The men who had earliest revolted against the
hardships now entertained rebellious sentiments and sought to foster
them in others. Although, as ringleaders in the food riot, they had been
summarily placed in irons, their punishment had been too brief perhaps
for a salutary moral effect. Demere's severity was always
theoretical,--a mental attitude one might say. The hardship of adding
shackles to the agonies of slow starvation so preyed upon his heart
that he had ordered the prisoners released before a sober reflection had
done its full work. The exemplary conduct, for a time, of the culprits
had no sufficient counterpart in chastened hearts, for they nourished
bitterness and secretly agitated mutiny.
The crisis came one morning when the meager supply of repulsive food had
shrunken to the scope of a few days' rations, the quantity always
dwindling in a regularly diminishing ratio; it had recently barely
enabled the men to sustain the usual guard duty, and they lay about the
parade at other times, or at full length on the porches of the barracks,
too feeble and dispirited to stir hand or foot without necessity.
Corporal O'Flynn, one of the few officers fit for duty, with a shade of
pallor on his face a trifle more ghastly than that of starvation,
reported that five men had failed to respond to roll-call, and upon
investigation it was found that they had burrowed out of the fort in the
darkness, seeking to desert to the enemy, but their intentions being
mistaken, or their overtures scorned, they had been stabbed and scalped
at the edge of the forest, and there their bodies were visible in the
early rays of the sun.
"May become unpleasant when the wind shifts," remarked Stuart easily,
and without emotion apparently, "but we are spared the duties of
punishing deserters according to their deserts."
Demere's face had shown a sudden nervous contraction but resumed its
fixed reserved expression, and he said nothing.
Corporal O'Flynn's report, however, was not yet exhausted. He hesitated,
almost choked. The blood rushed so scarlet to his face that one might
have wondered, at the show it made, that he had so much of that
essential element in circulation in his whole thin body. He lifted his
voice as if to urge the concentration of Stuart's attention which seemed
so casual--he had it the next moment.
"I feel like a traitor in tellin' it, sor," said O'Flynn, "I'm just one
of the men meself, an' it breaks me heart intirely to go agin 'em with
the officers. But me duty as a soldier is to the commandant of the fort,
an' as a man to the poor women an' childer."
He choked again, so reluctant was he in unfolding the fact that this was
but the first step, providentially disastrous, of a plan by which the
fort and the officers were to be abandoned, the rank and file
determining to throw themselves on the mercy of the savages, since even
to die at their hands was better than this long and futile waiting for
succor. Through Choo-qualee-qualoo some negotiations with the enemy had
been set on foot, of which O'Flynn was unaware hitherto, being excluded
from their councils as a non-commissioned officer, but after the result
of the desertion in the early hours before dawn, Daniel Eske, thoroughly
dismayed, had once more reverted to his reliance on the superior wisdom
of the commandant, and had seen fit to disclose the state of affairs to
the corporal, whose loyalty to his superior officers was always marked.
O'Flynn was commended, cautioned to be silent, and the door closed.
The two captains looked blankly at one another.
"The catastrophe is upon us," said Stuart. "Fort Loudon must fall."
In this extremity a council of war was held. Yet there seemed no course
open even to deliberation. On the one hand rose mutiny, starvation, and
desertion; but to surrender to such an enemy as the Cherokees meant
massacre. Their terrible fate held them in a remorseless clutch! At
last, with some desperate hope, such as the unsubstantial illusion with
which drowning men catch at straws, that the Indians might make and keep
terms, it was agreed that Captain Stuart, at his earnest desire, should
be the officer to treat with the enemy and secure such terms of
capitulation as they could be induced to hold forth.
It might be imagined that the little band of officers, in their hard
stress, had become incapable of any further vivid emotion, but in
vicarious terror they watched Stuart step forth boldly and alone from
the sally-port, a white flag in his hand, and arrayed, in deference to
the Indians' love of ceremony and susceptibility to compliment, in full
uniform.
He stood on the parapet of the covered way, motionless and distinct, in
the clear light of the morning, against the background of the great red
clay embankments. He was evidently seen, for through a spy-glass Demere
in the block-house tower noted the instant stillness that fell like a
spell upon the Indian line; the figures of the warriors, crouching or
erect, seemed petrified in the chance attitude of the moment. That he
was instantly recognized by skulking scouts in the woods was as evident.
His tall, sinewy figure; his long, dense, blond hair, with its heavy
queue hanging on the shoulders of his red coat; a certain daring,
martial insouciance of manner, sufficiently individualized him to the
far-sighted Cherokees, and the white flag in his hand--a token which
they understood, although they did not always respect it--intimated that
developments of moment in the conduct of the siege impended.
There was no sudden shrill whistling of a rifle ball, and Demere,
thinking of the fate of Coytmore on the river-bank at Fort Prince
George, began to breathe more freely. A vague sense of renewed
confidence thrilled through the watching group. Stuart had stipulated
that he should go alone--otherwise he would not make the essay. The
presence of two or three armed men, officers of the fort, intimated
suspicion and fear, incurred danger, and yet, helpless among such
numbers, afforded no protection. The others had yielded to this
argument, for he knew the Indian character by intuition, it would seem.
He was relying now, too, upon a certain personal popularity. He had
somehow engaged the admiration of the Indians, yet without disarming
their prejudice--a sort of inimical friendship. They all realized that
any other man would have now been lying dead on the glacis with a bullet
through his brain, if but for the sheer temptation to pick him off
neatly as a target of uncommon interest, whatever his mission might have
betokened.
How to accomplish this mission became a problem of an essential
solution, and on the instant. Not a figure stirred of the distant
Cherokee braves; not one man would openly advance within range of the
great guns that carried such terror to the Indian heart. Stuart stood in
momentary indecision, his head thrown back, his chin up, his keen,
far-seeing gray-blue eyes fixed on the motionless Indian line. Through
the heated August air the leaves of the trees seemed to quiver; the
ripples of the river scintillated in the sun; not a breath of wind
stirred; on the horizon the solidities of the Great Smoky Mountains
shimmered ethereal as a mirage.
Suddenly Stuart was running, lightly, yet at no great speed; he reached
the river-bank, thrust a boat out from the gravel, and with the flag of
truce waving from the prow he pushed off from the shore, and began to
row with long, steady strokes straight up the river. He was going to
Chote!
The observers at Fort Loudon, petrified, stared at one another in blank
amazement. The observers at the Cherokee camp were freed from their
spell. The whole line seemed in motion. All along the river-bank the
braves were speeding, keeping abreast of the swift little craft in the
middle of the stream. The clamors of the guttural voices with their
unintelligible exclamations came across the water.
It was like the passing of a flight of swallows. In less than five
minutes the boat, distinctly visible, with those salient points of
color, the red coat and the white flag against the silver-gray water,
had rounded the bend; every Indian runner was out of sight; and the line
of warriors had relapsed into their silent staring at the fort, where
the garrison dragged out three hours of such poignant suspense as seldom
falls to the lot of even unhappy men.
The sun's rays deepened their intensity; the exhausted, half-famished
sentries dripped with perspiration, the effects of extreme weakness as
well as of the heat, as they stood shouldering their firelocks and
anxiously watching from the loop-holes of the block-house towers, the
roofs of which, blistering in the sun, smelled of the wood in a close,
breathless, suffocating odor which their nerves, grown sensitive by
suffering, discriminated like a pain. The men off duty lay in the shadow
of the block-houses, for the rows of trees had vanished to furnish fuel
for the kitchen, or on the porches of the barracks, and panted like
lizards; the officers looked at one another with the significance of
silent despair, and believed Stuart distraught. Demere could not forgive
himself that he had been persuaded to agree that Stuart should appear.
Beyond the out-works, however, they had had no dream of his adventuring.
To try the effect of a personal appearance and invitation to a
conference was the extent of the maneuver as it was planned. There was
scant expectation in Fort Loudon that he would be again seen alive.
When the tension of the sun began to slacken and the heat to abate; when
the wind vaguely flapped the folds of the flag with a drowsing murmur,
as if from out of sleep; when the chirr of the cicada from the woods
grew vibratory and strident, suggestive of the passing of the day's
meridian, and heralding the long, drowsy lengths of the afternoon to
come, the little boat, with that bright touch of scarlet, shot out from
behind the wooded bend of the river, and in a few minutes was beached on
the gravel and Stuart was within the gates of Fort Loudon.
He came with a face of angry, puzzled excitement that surprised his
brother officers, whose discrimination may have been blunted in the joy
of his safe and unexpected return and the fair promises of the terms of
capitulation he had secured. Never had a vanquished enemy been more
considerately and cordially entreated than he at Chote. Oconostota and
Cunigacatgoah had come down to the river-bank on the news of his
approach and had welcomed him like a brother. To the great council-hall
he was taken, and not one word would Oconostota hear of his mission till
food was placed before him,--fish and fowl, bread, and a flask of wine!
"And when Oconostota saw that I had been so nearly starved that I could
hardly eat--Lord!--how his eyes twinkled!" cried Stuart, angrily.
But Oconostota had permitted himself to comment on the fact. He said
that it had grieved him to know of the sufferings from famine of his
brother and the garrison--for were they not all the children of the same
Great Father! But Captain Stuart must have heard of the hideous
iniquities perpetrated by the British Colonel in burning the Cherokee
towns in the southern region, where many of the inhabitants perished in
the flames, and slaying their warriors who did naught but defend their
own land from the invaders--the land which the Great Spirit had given to
the Cherokees, and which was theirs. And, now that the terrible Colonel
Montgomery had been driven out with his hordes, still reeking with
Cherokee blood, it was but fit that the Cherokees should take possession
of Fort Loudon, which was always theirs, built for them at their
request, and paid for with their blood, shed in the English service,
against the enemies of the English colonists, the French, who had always
dealt fairly with the Cherokees.
Captain Stuart bluntly replied that it did not become him to listen to
reflections upon the methods in which British commanders had seen fit to
carry out the instructions of the British government. They had,
doubtless, acted according to their orders, as was their duty. For his
own mission, although Fort Loudon could be held some space longer, in
which time reenforcements, which he had reason to think were on the
march, might come to its relief, the officers had agreed that the
sufferings of the garrison were such that they were not justified in
prolonging their distress, provided such terms of capitulation could be
had as would warrant the surrender of the fort.
As the interpreter, with the wooden voice, standing behind the chief,
gabbled out this rebuke of the Cherokee king's aspersions on
Montgomery, Stuart's ever quick eye noted an expression on the man's
face, habitually so blank and wooden,--he remembered it afterward,--an
expression almost applausive. Then his attention was concentrated on the
circumlocutions of Oconostota, who, in winding phrase almost
affectionate, intimated the tender truth that, without waiting for these
reenforcements, the enfeebled garrison could be overpowered now and
destroyed to the last man by a brisk onslaught, the Cherokees taking the
place by storm.
Stuart shook his head, and his crafty candor strengthened the negation.
"Not so long as the great guns bark," he declared. "They are the dogs of
war that make the havoc."
Then Oconostota, with that greed of the warlike Cherokee for the details
concerning this great arm of the British service, the artillery, always
coveted by the Indians, yet hardly understood, listened to a description
of the process by which these guns could be rendered useless in a few
minutes by a despairing garrison.
Their cannoneers could spike them after firing the last round. And of
what value would the fort be to the Cherokees without them,--it would be
mere intrenchments with a few dead men,--the most useless things under
the sun. The English government would bring new guns, and level the
works in a single day. The great chief knew the power of England. In the
days when Moy Toy sent his delegation to London, of which he and
Atta-Kulla-Kulla were members, to visit King George, they had seen the
myriads of people and had heard many great guns fired in salute to the
princely guests, and had assisted at the review of thousands and
thousands of soldiers.
And with the reminder of all these overpowering military splendors of
his great enemy, Oconostota began to feel that he would be glad to
secure possession of these few of King George's great guns uninjured,
fit to bark, and, if occasion should offer, to bite.
From that point the negotiation took a stable footing. With many a
crafty recurrence on the part of Stuart to the coveted artillery at
every balking doubt or denial, it was agreed that the stronghold should
be evacuated;--"That the garrison of Fort Loudon march out with their
arms and drums, each soldier having as much powder and ball as their
officer shall think necessary for their march, and all the baggage they
may chuse to carry: That the garrison be permitted to march to Virginia
or Fort Prince George, as the commanding officer shall think proper,
unmolested; and that a number of Indians be appointed to escort them
and hunt for provisions during their march: That such soldiers as are
lame or by sickness disabled from marching, be received into the Indian
towns and kindly used until they recover, and then be allowed to return
to Fort Prince George: That the Indians do provide for the garrison as
many horses as they conveniently can for their march, agreeing with the
officers and soldiers for payment: That the fort, great guns, powder,
ball, and spare arms, be delivered to the Indians without fraud or
further delay on the day appointed for the march of the troops."
These terms of capitulation were signed by Paul Demere, Oconostota, and
Cunigacatgoah, and great was the joy the news awoke among the garrison
of Fort Loudon. The sick arose from their beds; the lame walked, and
were ready to march; almost immediately, in the open space beneath the
terrible great guns, were men,--settlers, soldiers, and Indians,--trying
the paces of horses, and chaffering over the terms of sale. Provisions
were brought in; every chimney sent up a savory reek. Women were getting
together their little store of valuables in small compass for the
journey. Children, recently good from feeble incapacity to be otherwise,
were now healthily bad, fortified by a generous meal or two. And Fifine
was stroking the cat's humped back, as the animal munched upon the
ground bits of meat thrown prodigally away, and telling her that now
she would not be eaten,--so had that terror preyed upon the motherly
baby heart! Odalie had some smiling tears to shed for Hamish's sake, in
the earnest hope that he might be as well off, and those whom she had
consoled in affliction now in their prosperity sought to console her.
The officers were hilarious. They could hardly credit their own good
fortune--permitted to surrender Fort Loudon, after its gallant defense
to the last extremity, to the savage Cherokees, upon just such terms as
would have been dictated by a liberal and civilized enemy! Demere, after
the first burst of reproach that Stuart should have so recklessly
endangered himself, and of joy that his mission had been so successfully
accomplished, was cheerfully absorbed in destroying such official papers
as, falling into the hands of the French, might be detrimental to the
British interest. Of them all, only Stuart was doubtful, angry,
disconsolate. Perhaps because some fiber of sensitive pride, buried
deep, had been touched to the quick by Oconostota's ill-disguised
triumph; or he realized that he had labored long here, and suffered much
uselessly, and but for the threatened desertion of the garrison felt
that the fort might still be held till relief could reach it; or he was
of the temperament that adorns success, or even stalwart effort, but is
blighted by failure; or he was only staggered by the completeness of
his prosperous negotiations with the Cherokees and doubtful of their
good faith,--at all events he had lost his poise. He was gloomy,
ruminative, and broke out now and again with futile manifestations of
his disaffection.
Demere, burning letter-books and other papers on the hearth of the great
chimney-place of the hall, looked up from the table where he sorted them
to remind Stuart, as he strode moodily to and fro, not to leave things
of value to fall into the hands of the enemy. Stuart paused for a moment
with a gloomy face. Then, "They shall not have this," he said angrily.
The little red silk riding-mask, that was wont to look down from the
wall, null and inexpressive, with no suggestion in its vacant, sightless
orbs of the brightness of vanished eyes, with no faint trace of the fair
face that it had once sheltered, save as memory might fill the blank
contour, began to blaze humbly as he thrust it among the burning papers
on the hearth. An odd interpretation of things of value, certainly--a
flimsy memento of some bright day, long ago, and far away, when, not all
unwelcome, he had ridden at a lady's bridle-rein. Demere looked at him
with sudden interest, seemed about to speak, checked himself and said
nothing. And thus with this souvenir the romance of Stuart's life
perished unstoried.
More characteristic thoughts possessed him later. He came to Demere's
bedside that night as he lay sleeping in quiet peace, even his somnolent
nerves realizing the prospect of release. Stuart roused him with a new
anxiety. There was a very considerable quantity of powder in the fort,
far more than the Indians, unacquainted with the large charges required
for cannon, suspected that they possessed. By surrendering this great
supply of powder, Stuart argued, as well as the guns, they only
postponed not precluded their destruction. Brought down with the guns to
Fort Prince George in the hands of French cannoneers, this ample supply
of artillery would easily level those works with the ground. The French
officers, who they had reason to suspect were lurking in the Lower
Towns, would be unlikely to have otherwise so large a store of
ammunition in reach, capable of maintaining a siege, and before this
could be procured for the service of the surrendered cannon some
reenforcements to the commandant of Fort Prince George would arrive, or
an aggressive expedition be sent out from South Carolina.
"At all events this quantity of powder in the hands of the Cherokees
makes it certain that a siege of Fort Prince George will follow close on
the fall of Fort Loudon," Stuart declared.
Demere raised himself on his elbow to gaze at Stuart by the light of
the flickering candle which the visitor held in his hand.
"I am afraid that you are right," Demere said, after a grave pause. "But
how can we help it?"
"Hide the powder,--hide it," said Stuart excitedly. "Bury it!"
"Contrary to the stipulations and our agreement," returned Demere.
Stuart evidently struggled with himself. "If these fiends," he
exclaimed,--the triumph of Oconostota had gone very hard with
him,--"were like any other enemy we could afford to run the chance. But
have we the right to submit the commandant of Fort Prince George and his
garrison--to say nothing of ourselves and our garrison, hampered as we
are with women and children, taking refuge with him,--to the risk of
siege and massacre, fire and torture, compassed by materials practically
furnished by us,--on a delicate question of military ethics?"
"If we do not keep our word, how can we expect Oconostota to keep his
word?" asked Demere.
"But do we really expect it? Have we any guarantee?"
Once more Stuart hesitated, then suddenly decided. "But if you have
scruples"--he broke off with a shrug of the shoulders. "I should leave
Oconostota enough powder to amuse him with the guns for a while, but
not enough to undertake a siege. The government will surely occupy this
place again. I expect to find the powder here when I come back to Fort
Loudon."
His words were prophetic, although neither knew it. He cast a hasty
glance at Demere, who again objected, and Stuart went out of the door
saying nothing further, the draught flickering, then extinguishing, the
flame of the candle in his hand.
It was very dark about midnight when the whole place lay locked in
slumber. The sentries, watchful as ever in the block-house towers and at
the chained and barred gates, noted now and again shadowy figures about
the region of the southeast bastion,--the old exhausted smoke-house had
been in that locality,--and thence suppressed voices sounded
occasionally in low-toned, earnest talk. No light showed save in
glimpses for a while through the crevices in the walls of the building
itself, and once or twice when the door opened and was suddenly shut.
There Corporal O'Flynn and three soldiers and Captain Stuart himself,
armed with mattocks, dug a deep trench in the tough red clay, carefully
drawing to one side the dead ashes and cinders left by the fires of his
earnest preparations against the siege. Then the lights were
extinguished, and from the great traverse, in which was the powder
magazine, they brought ten heavy bags of powder, and laid them in the
trench, covering them over with the utmost caution, lest a mattock
strike a spark from a stone here and there in the earth. At last, still
observing great care, they tramped the clay hard and level as a floor,
and spread again the ashes and cinders over the upturned ground, laying
the chunks of wood together, as they had burnt half out after the last
fire many weeks ago.
When Captain Stuart inveigled Captain Demere thither the next morning,
on some pretext concerning the removal of the troops, he was relieved to
see that although Demere was most familiar with the place he had not
even the vaguest suspicion of what lay under his feet, for this was the
best test as to whether the work had been well done. It was only at the
moment of departure, of rendering up the spare arms, and serving out
ammunition to the soldiers for the journey, that he was made aware how
mysteriously the warlike stores had shrunken, but Oconostota's beadlike
eyes glistened with rapture upon attaining the key of the magazine with
its hoard of explosives, unwitting that it had ever contained more.
The soldiers went out of the gates in column, in heavy marching order,
their flags and uniforms making a very pretty show for the last time on
the broad open spaces about Fort Loudon. For the last time the craggy
banks and heavily wooded hills of the Tennessee River echoed to the
beat of the British drums. Behind, like a train of gypsies, were the
horses purchased from the Indians, on which were mounted the women and
little girls, with here and there a sick soldier, unable to keep his
place in the ranks and guyed by his comrades with reviving jollity, in
the face of hope and freedom, as "a squaw-man." The more active of the
children, boys chiefly, ran alongside, and next in order came the
settlers, now in column as "fencibles," and again one or two quitting
the ranks to cuff into his proper place some irrepressible youngster
disposed to wander. In the rear were the Indian safe-guards through the
Cherokee nation, with their firelocks and feathers and scanty attire
that suggested comfort this hot day. For the August sun shone from a sky
of cloudless blue; a wind warm but fresh met them going the other way;
the dew was soon dried and the temperature rose; the mountains glimmered
ethereally azure toward the east with a silver haze amongst the domes
and peaks, and toward the west they showed deeply and densely purple, as
the summit lines stretched endlessly in long parallel levels.
And so these pioneers and the soldiers set forth on their way out of the
land that is now Tennessee, to return no more; wending down among the
sun-flooded cane-brakes, and anon following the trail through the
dense, dark, grateful shades of the primeval woods. So they went to
return no more,--not even in the flickering guise of spectral visitants
to the scenes that knew them once,--scarcely as a vague and vagrant
memory in the country where they first planted the home that cost them
so dearly and that gave them but little.
Nevertheless, a hearty farewell it bestowed this morning,--for they sang
presently as they went, so light and blithe of heart they were, and the
crags and the hills, and the rocky banks of that lovely river, all cried
out to them in varying tones of sweet echoes, and ever and again the
boom of the drums beat the time.